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Idea for Reducing Some Chemo Side Effects

Some breast cancer patients have been able to prevent hair loss with scalp cooling during chemotherapy. Multiple studies have found that 10-100% of patients kept their hair. In the newest news release of a Baylor study, 50% of the scalp cooling patients kept their hair while none of the control group kept theirs. In this last study, some participants wore the cooling caps only during the infusion period and others kept them for another 90 minutes afterwards.

Note that this was done with breast cancer and it may work differently (better/worse?) with other treatments.

Chemotherapy affects rapidly dividing cells, like the cells that grow hair, line our intestines and mouth, make up or skin, etc. The idea behind cooling is limiting chemotherapy into these areas to slow these cells down and/or shrink blood vessels.

Which got me wondering if some patients who have side effects such as mouth, skin, nail, and nerve problems might be helped the same way? It might be a simple to hold onto a cold pack during treatment and see if it alleviates symptoms for someone who suffers from raw hands/foot problems? Or suck on ice chips during infusions to see if mouth problems are lessened? Of most benefit would be halting neuropathy somehow.

All these chemo side effects are located near the surface of the body where cooling might be easily applied. Freezing and causing cell damage would be bad. And we have to consider that it could make the problems worse, which is why we do these things in clinical trials.